Ford Motor Co., the top seller of
pickup trucks in the U.S., is seeking to build credibility as a
maker of small cars with a new advertising campaign for its
Fiesta subcompact.

A Fiesta commercial will debut tomorrow during Fox
television’s “American Idol,” and dealers will begin selling
the company’s first subcompact in more than a decade in the U.S.
this summer. Ford will introduce a redesigned version of its
Focus compact early next year. The Fiesta and Focus were
developed by Ford’s European operations.

“This is an opportunity to change the perception of the
Ford brand,” Matt VanDyke, Ford’s U.S. marketing director, said
today during a press conference in the company’s home city of
Dearborn, Michigan. “We don’t have natural showroom traffic on
small cars.”

The Fiesta, which starts at $13,995, is an attempt to turn
around Ford’s history of making little or no money selling small
cars to U.S. consumers. With rising oil prices boosting sales of
those cars, Ford and General Motors Co. are rolling out models
to meet drivers’ changing tastes while delivering a profit.

“It’s a very important launch for the near-term future of
Ford,” John Wolkonowicz, an auto analyst at IHS Global Insight
in Lexington, Massachusetts, said today in an interview. “If
they can’t sell a lot of these, they’ll have to go back to the
drawing board.”

‘Pretty Big Deal’

Fiesta commercials, with the slogan “It’s a pretty big
deal,” will appear in the final four episodes of American Idol
in the next two weeks, reaching more than 100 million viewers,
VanDyke said. Ford is spending a “substantial” amount on the
Fiesta campaign, which may be similar in size to promotions for
Ford’s top-selling model, the F-series truck, VanDyke said.

“This is the biggest car launch of the year” for Ford,
said VanDyke, who declined to give a specific amount. “We have
very, very consistently advertised F-series and we recognize we
need to begin to make the same investment in the brand for
cars.”

Ford fell 16 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $11.95 at 4:15 p.m.
in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have
risen 20 percent this year.

The Fiesta is rated by the Environmental Protection Agency
to get 40 miles per gallon on the highway and 29 mpg in the
city, Ford said today. That matches the highway mileage GM has
said its Chevrolet Cruz compact will achieve when it debuts in
the second half of this year.

Small-Car Bet

The Fiesta is a pillar of Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally’s bet that U.S. buyers will embrace small cars equipped
with the amenities more typically found in larger models such as
sport-utility vehicles. Seven air bags, air-conditioning and a
dashboard LCD screen are standard.

“The car has what it takes, but it remains to be seen if
Americans are ready to pay more for a small car,” Wolkonowicz
said. “This is a grand experiment.”

The Fiesta will sell from $13,995 to $20,375, and prices
for the Focus now start at $16,985, according to Ford. The next
generation of Focus hasn’t been priced.

More than half of the 1,540 advance orders for the Fiesta
are for the highest-priced version, which starts at $16,995,
said Chantel Lenard, the car’s marketing manager. Heated leather
seats, priced at $715, are the most popular option among those
putting money down on the car, she said.

“This is a great demonstration of Ford’s re-entry into the
car market,” Lenard said. The Focus and Fiesta are “going to
work really well in the showroom together because they’ll both
attract a new customer to Ford.”